{"id":2366,"date":"2019-04-01T15:44:20","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T19:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/?p=2366"},"modified":"2019-04-01T15:44:20","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T19:44:20","slug":"remembering-agnes-varda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/2019\/04\/01\/remembering-agnes-varda\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Agn\u00e8s Varda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t\n<p>On March 29<sup>th<\/sup>, the world lost Agn\u00e8s Varda, one of the most quietly influential filmmakers of the 20<sup>th<\/sup> (and 21<sup>st<\/sup>) century. Varda, who released her first film in 1954, is considered by many to be the \u2018godmother\u2019 of French new Wave cinema, if not the first New Wave filmmaker. Her first film, <em>La Pointe-Courte<\/em>, predated the first films of Goddard and his ilk by several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/b\/bb\/Agn%C3%A8s_Varda_at_Guadalajara_Film_Festival.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"252\" height=\"376\" \/><figcaption>Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara [CC BY 2.0 (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0)]<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps the reason some don\u2019t include her in this\nmovement was that she seemed to unconsciously separate herself from it. Varga\nmoved to films from photography, and knew little about the broader (and quite\nmisogynistic) film industry when she released <em>La Pointe Courte<\/em>, and even when she released her second film, <em>Cleo 5 to 7<\/em>, in 1961. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout her career, Agn\u00e8s Varda did what she wanted to\ndo. Fiercely independent, her signature blend of documentary and story-telling\nexamined her subjects with empathy and curiosity, inviting her audiences to\nexamine her characters and her stories. Her techniques, too, were trailblazing.\nIn <em>Vagabond<\/em> Varda \u2018interviewed\u2019\ncharacters her main character encounters, similar to documentary features. This\ntechnique today is familiar to anyone who enjoys shows like The Office or Parks\nand Recreation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In her later years, Varda moved from her\nfiction-documentaries to pure documentaries, such as <em>The Gleaners and I<\/em> and <em>Faces\nPlaces<\/em>, which earned her an academy award nomination. Still, these\npersonal, empathetic films eschewed the hallmarks of a traditional documentary.\nWith these, as with her earlier works, Varda created something that was all her\nown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can find most of Varda\u2019s filmography here in Media Services, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>la Pointe-Courte (DVD 4153)<\/li><li>Cl\u00e9o de 5 a 7 (DVD 4151)<\/li><li>Vagabond (DVD 4152)<\/li><li>Faces Places (DVD 15052)<\/li><li>The Beaches of Agnes (DVD 6936)<\/li><li>Daguerr\u00e9otypes (DVD 9187)<\/li><li>One Sings, the Other Doesn&#8217;t (DVD 7521)<\/li><li>Kung Fu Master! (DVD 15081)<\/li><\/ul>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On March 29th, the world lost Agn\u00e8s Varda, one of the most quietly influential filmmakers of the 20th (and 21st) century. Varda, who released her first film in 1954, is considered by many to be the \u2018godmother\u2019 of French new Wave cinema, if not the first New Wave filmmaker. Her first film, La Pointe-Courte, predated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-directors","category-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.american.edu\/mediaservices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}